Tea and cake to die for at Britain’s new Death Café

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“Tea and cake is very important” to the Death Café movement, said Jon UnderwoodBethany Clarke/The Times

Tom Knowles

Last updated at 12:01AM, April 19 2014

A permanent death café is set to open in Britain, with hot drinks, sandwiches, cake and, most importantly, discussion on dying. The idea is for people to talk about mortality, funerals or the afterlife, but without needing to have suffered a recent bereavement themselves.

“We’re not doing anything earth-shatteringly clever, we’re just talking about death over tea and cake,” said Jon Underwood, who founded the Death Café movement two years ago.

“There are very few places where we can talk about death. You’ve got your hospices, your cemeteries and funeral directors, but it’s all specifically for people who are dying.